The invention generally relates to network elements, methods, apparatuses, systems and programs e.g. of or for communication. At least some of the embodiments of the invention generally relate to at least one of networks, apparatuses, methods, programs, or systems such as for example cellular systems or networks like third generation partnership project, 3GPP, long term evolution, LTE, or LTE-advanced, LTE-A, according to e.g. release 10, Rel'10, and beyond.
System implementations like LTE-A implementations may provide flexible spectrum use, FSU, with system bandwidth extended beyond the maximum bandwidth of current or upcoming systems like LTE release 8 and release 9 system which may use frequencies of e.g. up to 20 MHz. Mechanisms for extending the bandwidth beyond 20 MHz may be provided such as contiguous multi-chunk channel bonding and non-contiguous multi-carrier channel aggregation. In the present document, all these and other mechanisms are commonly referred to as FSU-driven multi-carrier cell deployment.
Backward compatibility of LTE-A to earlier systems like release 8, 9 systems allows a user equipment, e.g. according to release 8 or 9, to access a corresponding LTE-A system. Likewise, a user equipment according to an LTE-A implementation may be able to access a corresponding release 8 or 9 system. Provided that a user equipment according to release 8 or 9 is capable of operating in a scalable system bandwidth of up to 20 MHz, and that for LTE-A the system bandwidth can be extended up to 100 MHz, LTE-A radio may represent a FSU driven scalable multi-carrier system having at least one carrier compatible to, and usable with, release 8 or 9 systems or user equipments. For instance, a LTE-A multi-carrier cell may be dynamically configured in accordance with one or of the following or other assumptions and rules.
One or more carriers of a multi-carrier cell such as e.g. a LTE-A multi-carrier cell may be characterized as coverage and capacity carriers. Coverage and capacity are logical or technical quantities determining a cell regardless of technologies used.